THT European Digest (January) : Mesut Ozil Is Our European Player Of The Month, While Fraizer Campbell Shines On His Come Back

By Amlan Majumdar
12 years Ago

Welcome to the 4th edition ofAi??THT European Digest, where we bring you all the highlightsAi??across the top European leagues for the month of January.

This month, the African Cup Of Nations went underway, which of course means that a lot of stars were missing from their respective clubs. This also gave opportunity for some other players to claim their place in the teams. Domestic cup completions across various leagues are nearly its climax, but this being January being the month of winter transfer, players made more headline off the pitch than on the pitch. Meanwhile there was no action in the Russian Premier League last month as the League has entered its winter break. The month ended on a distressing note of nearly 74 people being killed and over 1000 injured in violence after a football match between Al-Masry and Al-Ahly in Port Said (Egypt). TheHardTackle would like to offer our condolences to the families affected by such insensate folly.

Here is a look at the best matches from all the top leagues for the month of November.

Match Of The Month ai??i?? La Liga

FC Villarreal Vs FC Valencia (2-2)

Match Of The Month ai??i?? Portuguese Primeira Liga

Ai??Ai??Feirense v Benfica (1-2)

Match Of The Month ai??i?? Italian Serie A

Palermo v Genoa (5-3)

Match Of The Month ai??i?? German Bundesliga

Borussia MAi??nchengladbach v Bayern Munich (3-1)

Match Of The Month ai??i?? English Premier League

Swansea v Arsenal (3-2)

Match Of The Month ai??i?? Ligue 1

AS Nancy v FC Lorient (2-2)

Match Of The Month ai??i?? Scottish Premier League

Dunfermline v Hibernian (2-3)

Match Of The Month ai??i?? Eredivisie

Feyenoord v Ajax (4-2)

Shock Result Of The Month

Gil Vicente v FC Porto (3-1)

Gil Vicente’s victory of over Porto last month, ended incredible 55-game unbeaten run in the Portuguese league.

European Player Of The Month

Mesut Ai??zil (Real Madrid)

This month’sAi??European player award goes to the ever reliable Mesut Ozil. The German international, who is currently into his second year in his Real Madrid Career, had a somewhat difficult start to the season this time around. After the wonderful performances during his debut season at Madrid, people’s expectations sky rocketed. But in the first half of this season, he failed to deliver consistently. This dip in form, though, was largely attributed towards Mourinho and where he opted to play the classy playmaker. Ozil has been played out of positions at times this season and hence the German has struggled at times to leave his usual mark on the game. But off-late things have changed, Mourinho has seemingly brought back Ozil to his moreAi??favoredAi??central position, and the results are there for everyone to see.

This month Ozil has been in brilliant form and has looked being back to his best. The month started with the German International racking up aAi??hat-trickAi??of assists against Granada, as Madrid ran away 5-1 winners. His performances continued to dazzle as he put in another man-of-the-match performance against Mallorca in Los Blancos’s 2-1 victory. In the 3rd league match of the month, Real Madrid faced Athletic Bilbao at home, Ozil pulled the strings from the midfield as the home team thrashed Bilbao 4-1. In the next match, at home against Zaragoza, Ozil rounded of the month with another dazzling performance. He racked up another assist and scored Madrid’s 3rd goal in the match as he was once again adjudged as the man-of-the-match.

Here is a video of Ozil’s wonderful performance against Athletic Bilbao.

Special mentions should also go to the following players from other leagues

EPL ai??i?? Ai??Antonia Valencia (Manchester United) ai??i?? 1 Goals and 1 Assists, 2 MoM

SPL ai??i?? Francisco Sandaza (Celtic) ai??i?? 2 Goals, 1 MoM

Eredivisie ai??i?? Luuk de Jong (Twente) ai??i?? 5 Goals, 2 MoM

Ligue 1 ai??i?? David Ospina (Nice) ai??i?? 2 Clean Sheets, 1 MoM

Serie A ai??i??Ai??Lucio (Inter) ai??i?? 1 Goal and 1 Assist, 1 MoM

Bundesliga ai??i?? Kevin GroAYkreutz (Borussia Dortmund) ai??i?? 2 Goals and 2 Assist

Liga Sagres ai??i?? Ai??scar Cardozo (Benfica) ai??i?? 5 Goals, 2 MoM

*MoM ai??i?? Man of the match

European Goal Of The Month

Frazier Campbell (Sunderland)

Frazier Campbell’s wonderful volley against Norwich is our Goal of the month. What makes it even more special is that Campbell scored this on his return from a lengthy injury lay-off. Watch the Goal here.

European Team Of The Month

Kiko Casilla (Espanyol),Ai??Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus),Ai??Lucio (Inter),Ai??Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid),Ai??Antonio Valencia (Manchester United),Ai??Luka Modric (Tottenham Hotspurs),Ai??Antoine Griezmann (Real Sociedad),Ai??Mesut Ai??zil (Real Madrid),Ai??Zlatan Ibrahimovic (AC Milan),Ai??Ai??scar Cardozo (Benfica),Ai??Luuk de Jong (Twente)

: European Team of the month (Note that Champions League and Europa League performances are not taken into consideration while selecting the team)

Food For Thought

Here are some interesting Statistics for you to ponder about. The below table contains the top five teams who have the highest ai???Average Ball Possessionai??? per game in Europe at the moment.

Team	League	Average ball possession per game

Barcelona	La Liga	70

Bayern Munich	Bundesliga	65.7

Real Madrid	La Liga	61.2

AC Milan	SerieA	60.5

Juventus	SerieA	60.2

Stats courtesyAi??www.whoscored.com

Trivia

AS Nancy was formed in 1967, two years after FC Nancy gotAi??dissolved. The city of Nancy has had three different clubs playing professional football.Ai??Ai??FC Nancy was formed in 1901 and got dissolved in 1965 due to financial difficulties, whereas another club by the name ofAi??US FrontiA?re was formed in 1910 but suffered similar fate to FC Nancy in 1935.

Categories: COVER STORY, UEFA
Tags: EPL Eredivisie European football French League German Bundesliga La Liga Ligue 1 Portuguese League Russian Premier League Scottish league Serie A SPL